History

Edwin Samson Moore registered the Midland Vinegar Company, at Aston in Birmingham, in 1875. Some twenty or so years later, on visiting one of his vinegar debtor’s, a Mr F G Garton of Nottingham, he discovered a spicy sauce cooking in a back room of his small grocery shop and a basket cart in the yard on which was roughly painted the words “Garton’s H.P.Sauce”. Immediately recognising the business opportunity he had long been looking for, Moore cancelled Garton’s debt by buying the recipe and the name. The HP stands for Houses of Parliament, as depicted on the label, a name Garton gave his invention when he heard that it was seen in one of the House of Commons restaurants. The sauce itself was made from a blend of vinegar, fruit and spices.

When Moore first marketed HP Sauce n the UK in 1903 a national advertising campaign was launched which included the sale of miniature bottles of HP Sauce by door-to-door salesmen. The taste of spicy chutneys, once the prerogative of the wealthy and well-travelled, because of their expensive ingredients, suddenly became accessible to the masses. A cheaper version of brown sauce, called Daddies Favourite, was launched in 1904. During WWI and other times of shortage sauce was also sold as a way of making leftovers and inferior cuts of meat more palatable. HP was exported all over the British Empire as well as France and Scandinavia.

In 1924 HP Sauce Ltd was floated by the British Shareholders Trust. Lea & Perrins Sauce, acquired in 1930, continued production at its Midland Road factory in Worcester. Daddies tomato ketchup was launched during the 1950s. 

By the 1960s it had become Smedley HP Foods Ltd and was acquired by Imperial Tobacco Company (later Imperial Foods) in 1967, then sold, by its parent company Hanson plc, to Groupe Danone SA in 1988. It was purchased by H J Heinz in June 2005 and production finally ceased at Aston on 16 March 2007. The business was transferred to Heinz’s European sauce facility at Elst in the Netherlands.

During the 1980’s HP ran a popular advertising campaign with Frank Bruno telling his friend and boxing commentator Harry Carpenter “Frankly I’m not HP”! In 2005 advertising agency, Mustoes Ltd, ran the “HP Official Sauce of Great Britain” campaign, its client being unaware at the time that its product would be manufactured abroad within two years.

HAT has been archivist to HP Foods Ltd for several years and continues to administer the collection on behalf of
H J Heinz & Co Ltd.

See: H J Heinz & Co Ltd

Archive content

Date range: 1890s-present

Scope/Formats

Large collection of advertising and marketing material from the earliest period to the present day with a large label library. The collection includes the HP Sauce, Daddies Sauce and Lea & Perrins brands.